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THESSALONIKI 2
Day 102
Wednesday Nov11
1550
I think I just ordered the most expensive coffee I’ve had ever. 4.5 Euros, that’s about 7.5 AUD. What a crock. It better be good.
I’m sitting in a café at ‘Mediterranean Cosmos’ it’s the shopping mall out here. The place is pretty much empty well this coffee bar isn’t but the rest of the mall sure is.
I woke up this morning at 8 and had a feed and went for a run. My legs were pretty heavy from yesterday, I would have walked 20k’s yesterday, but the run still felt awesome, about 45 minutes, most of which was along the water in the sun.
After I got back I ate some more food and packed my gear up. The reason I’m packing isn’t because I’m leaving. Maria’s parents don’t know about couch surfing, and this afternoon her sister is dropping off some washing. So I’ve packed up my stuff and pushed it underneath Maria’s bed to keep the secret.
I spent the morning walking around town. Booked my ticket to Athens, which I got for 23Euros even thought the guy at the info box said it was 36, I was pretty happy about that. From there I went and checked out some boots at a store near the station. I’m pretty sure they’re real salomon hiking boots but I’m not 100%, that’s why I’m out here to do a bit of a comparrison.
I then got on a bus heading towards Komara, where I was catching the bus out here. I got on, and it almost immediately did a U-turn and I ended up further back then where I started. Nevertheless after a short walk and a couple of buses I made it out here. For my 4.5Euro coffee. It’s not even that good.
1240 (12Nov)
The afternoon at Cosmos went pretty quickly.
Dammit I’m going backwards. I’m on the train going to Athens and it just left Thessaloniki. I just had a major fright too. I pulled out my ticket and had a quick scan of it. It just said Thessaloniki and Skopje, which is backwards. I want to go to Athens!! But I realized I’d grabbed out my ticket from skopje accidentally. So it’s all ok.
Yeah so the afternoon at cosmos went pretty quickly, I quickly did a lap of the almost empty centre and then found a different, less expensive coffee shop. I’d bough Richard dawkins “The god delusion” and sat with a coffee reading that for most of the day. At 6 Maria messaged me, she wasn’t coming out to meet me and her sister was going to be there untill about 7. So I cut my losses and went and saw a movie.
I went and saw surrogates. It was great, for the 2 hours I was in there I didn’t feel like I was in a foreign country, sure the subtitles were in Greek, but I’d quickly switched off to that. It was good to take a short break from being overseas. I just felt like I was in a cinema at highpoint or crown. It was even a villiage cinema, just like the ones back home. I was actually a little shocked when I was brought back to reality out side.
I was horribly lost and realized I had no idea where I’d caught the bus from or if I even catch the same one back. I walked to where I thought I’d come in and approached a security guard to ask where I get the busses from. I was on the wrong side of the building so I decided to walk around. Dumb. I should have walked straight through, it would have been much much quicker.
Back at home I sat with Maria watching ‘how I met your mother’ on her computer. I was also getting stuck into her grandma’s chocolate cheesecake. Fantastic!! So much for that morning’s run.
Day 103
Thursday Nov12
1300
This morning I woke up at what I thought was 1 or 2 am. I opened my door to go to the toilet and was blinded by the light coming in from the kitchen. The shutters they use on their windows over here do a fantastic job of keeping the light out.
I went into the bathroom and locked the door. Once I’d finished my business I went to open the door. The key wouldn’t budge. I tried again. No luck. I continued trying for about 10 minutes. By this time I’d woked up Maria. “Oh, I should have warned you about that door” we spent the next 10 minutes me with the key and Maria trying to pull apart the lock. We were at our wits end. Nothing was working. “Do u want me to call my dad?” she asked. That was the last thing I wanted. So I kept trying for some reason in the end it just worked.
I packed and left out the door at 1000, my train was at 1240, pleanty of time. The bus into town took forever almost 50 minutes. I should have walked. From there I jumped on another bus to get to the train station. I walked on and asked the driver if it did indeed go to the bus station. From where I’d asked I wasn’t in a very good position with my pack on, so I just stood there. Untill a little old lady decided to push me out of the way because she wanted to stand at the door in everyone’s way so that she could get out when she wanted.
1600
One thing I forgot to mention was of my walk from the centre of town to the train station. I had my headphones on so I couldn’t hear anything. But at one point I walked past a small terrior. “G’day boy” I said. And kept walking. Next thing I knew this dog was hanging from my loose jeans around my knee. I shook it off no problems but still lucky I was wearing jeans.
I also bought a new pair of shoes on the way to the station. Some decent ones, salomon. Fully waterproof. I was sick of the other s***ty ones so I left them in the box and wore my new ones out. The best thing was I managed to bargain a free pair of sox out of them. Clean sox!! Oh yeah!!
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